Once heralded as the greatest British actor of his generation, Nicol Williamson was also a legend for stormy onstage behavior that included calling off a performance of "Hamlet" mid-speech because he was too tired to go on.

"I'll pay for the seats," he later recalled telling the audience in 1969, "but I won't shortchange you by not giving my best." And then he walked off.

In London, Nicol Williamson is remembered for celebrated performances in “Hamlet,” “Waiting for Godot” and “Inadmissible Evidence.” But around Broadway, he’ll always be remembered for his bizarre — sometimes hilarious — antics, onstage and off.

Tim Walker: Excalibur star Nicol Williamson has just six mourners at his funeral.

Mandrake disclosed on Wednesday that the actor had died in Holland, aged 73. “He was adamant that there should be no fuss,” his son, Luke, tells me.

The star of Excalibur, whose former lovers include Dame Helen Mirren and Marianne Faithfull, fought what Luke describes as a “brave battle” against cancer for two years. “He said he didn’t want any big announcement. He hated the idea of people who didn’t know him putting together pieces about him by 'Googling’ and 'cut-and-pasting’ stuff.”

With apologies for cutting and pasting this stuff. And with respect for Helen Mirren and Marianne Faithfull.

Ad Preferences

It has been said that Google knows more about what you like than your own partner
Now the search giant has given a glimpse on just how much information it has collected - and who thinks you are.
But it seems the famed Google algorithms are far from infallible.

Far from infallible, Google thinks I am at least ten years younger than I am, but close to the mark in terms of my interests.

Your categories

Below you can review the interests and inferred demographics that Google has associated with your cookie. You can remove or edit these at any time.

Vivienne Westwood | Spring Summer 2012

Uriah Heep - Wizard

January 29, 2012

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

Based on the award winning novella by Harlan Ellison (nsfw due to imagery of sexual violence, Don Johnson).

A post-apocalyptic tale based on a novella by Harlan Ellison. A boy communicates telepathically with his dog as they scavenge for food and sex, and they stumble into an underground society where the old society is preserved. The daughter of one of the leaders of the community seduces and lures him below, where the citizens have become unable to reproduce because of being underground so long. They use him for impregnation purposes, and then plan to be rid of him.

In dog years I'm dead

An ancient dog skull, preserved in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia for 33,000 years, presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and, together with equally ancient dog remains from a cave in Belgium, indicates that domestication of dogs may have occurred repeatedly in different geographic locations rather than with a single domestication event.

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic

Traces of a red paint made from ochre shows Neanderthals were producing and using it up to 250,000 years ago, pushing evidence of paint use in Europe back to the same same range as examples from Africa.

January 28, 2012

I let them use you for their own ends

The listing on the Disney Store website reads: "Inspired by the iconic sleeve of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures album, this Waves Mickey Mouse Tee incorporates Mickey's image within the graphic of the pulse of a star. That's appropriate given few stars have made bigger waves than Mickey!" The shirt is "created especially for Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort."

Quite possibly the greatest T-shirt ever conceived but, sadly, no longer available at the Disney Store.

It's remotely possible you might still be able to find one on, for example, eBay. Just saying.

How to get out of your own skull

Mark Twain, Gerald Kersh, Clark Ashton Smith, Joseph Conrad, comic books, Big Little Books, radio drama (especially “The Shadow”) and the best writer in America today, Paul Di Filippo. I wish I could write 1/20th as well as Paul Di Filippo. If you’ve never read him, get a book called Lost Pages. Read the first story, which is called “Anne,” and if it doesn’t break your heart and make you weep, I don’t know what will. Also Donald Westlake. Particularly the Richard Stark novels. You can learn more from the chapter in The Outfit where he goes down south to buy the car . . . self-contained. I think it’s the third chapter. I teach it in writer’s workshops. I say, “I’m going to read, just sit and listen.”

Viking death squads

They either were, or modelled themselves on, the Jomsvikings – a hit squad founded by Harald Bluetooth, the Norse king who died around 970 who masterminded a stream of vicious raids on the south coast of England. Named after their stronghold at Jomsborg on the Baltic coast, their history is shrouded in myth but at a time the Vikings were feared across Europe, they were regarded as the most terrifying of all.

But on this occasion, the men, barely into their twenties, were ambushed by the local Anglo-Saxon villagers.

H+M is awesome

Regretsy reports H+M has stolen the work of East Atlanta Village artist, Tori LaConsay.

On December 14, 2008, I painted a love letter to my neighborhood. The sign was located on the main thoroughfare on Flat Shoals Avenue.

On one side of the sign, I painted, “You Look Nice Today” followed by a little heart. This was on the side of the sign that I thought people would see on their way to work. On the other side of the sign (the side I thought people would see the most on their return back to the neighborhood) I painted, “I’m So Happy You’re Here” with another little heart. It was a small gesture that I genuinely hoped would make my neighbors feel good.

Now yours for £12.99 from H+M.

Yesterday, I wrote to H+M's PR flackAmanda Wennö, a representative for "an independent film production company, making both TV documentaries as well as press films (such as those for H&M)" (I'm on her mailing list) to ask about the problem.

She hasn't replied.

Not much later that morning: I have amended the above post to more correctly represent Amanda Wennö's relationship to H+M. She is not a PR representative acting on their behalf, only a representative for the firm that makes the H+M promotional videos she keeps sending me. Some might call this a distinction without a difference. Some might call it getting a reply only after you have published a direct link to someone's LinkedIn profile.

Not that she has bothered to reply herself (and this is not the first time). But thanks anyway to Cecilia Wirseen for alerting me to this crucial distinction and my apologies for any confusion arising from the difference between H+M public relations and H+M press films.

Note to marketing firms: If you insist on spamming me with unsolicited promotional materials, you should observe the basic courtesy of replying to your email. I gave Amanda a full day to respond to my concerns. It is the least she could have done considering the H+M press films she keeps sending me.

So, no, Cecilia, I won't be deleting anything.

Minutes later: A wild H+M Media Relations note appears!

Dear Nicholas,

We are sorry if we have upset anyone, we are taking this matter most seriously and right now we are looking into the situation.
We have reached out to Tori LaConsay, are in direct contact with her and we will continue this dialogue directly with her regarding this matter.

Best regards
Håcan Andersson
Press officer, H&M

My reply:

Dear Håcan,

Imagine my astonishment to hear from you. Cecilia Wirseen took great pains to distance her firm from H+M, I gather they don't engage in PR for H+M, only make press films for H+M and then promote them to people like me.

And yet now I hear direct from H+M.

With respect to the issue at hand, please feel free to keep me informed as to how the work of an Atlanta artist could appear on your products without attribution or, one imagines, compensation.

I can only base my opinions on what has been reported, of course. It may be some terrible error has been committed. But I can tell you that if something comparable had happened to me, the firm responsible would hear from my attorneys and I would not be satisfied until someone had been quite publicly fired.

Directly related: I haven't set foot in an Urban Outfitters for a year. I don't expect I will be back to H+M any time soon.

If you work in a "creative industry", or hold any sort of intellectual property in any medium, I suggest you don't either.

How thick is your bubble?

On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble,you scored between 0 and 4.

In other words, your bubble is so thick you may not even know you're in one.

I did not give myself points for a very brief stint in demolition, my construction gigs usually involved site tours with a hard-hat and tie. Similarly, my experience of union meetings is limited to participation in an ad hoc media relations committee for CUPE 3903, arguably the most aggressive academic union in Canada (with all the usual non-teaching related, problematical York University political commitments; we were on strike at the time). And while I used to be on Greyhound most weekdays, it was to commute to my teaching job in a cultural studies program.

People are starting to notice the great divide. The tea party sees the aloofness in a political elite that thinks it knows best and orders the rest of America to fall in line. The Occupy movement sees it in an economic elite that lives in mansions and flies on private jets. Each is right about an aspect of the problem, but that problem is more pervasive than either political or economic inequality. What we now face is a problem of cultural inequality.
...
We have developed a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America's core cultural institutions.

Run, Johnny Depp! Run!

"You know, when I eat three peas, I'm pregnant.
When I visit a city, I'm buying a house.
In the winter I separate, in the summer I marry.
It's been fifteen years since I've been getting married every year.
In addition I have to answer all these rumours!"

Air Chanel

"The elaborate setting for this season's Couture show saw the Grand Palais in Paris transformed into a 'private jet' - complete with numbered seating, floor-level lighting and even a slatted roof which revealed a 'faux-sky'." (images at the link)

Shock-and-awe Shakespeare

Working from a highly inventive screenplay by Gladiator writer John Logan that recasts ancient Rome as a Balkanised warzone, debut director Ralph Fiennes mounts a muscular modern-dress version of a notoriously difficult play. Pretty poetry is in short supply but, with a hail of bullets and a pile of bodies, this is shock-and-awe Shakespeare.

Miranda Kerr's Grazia "Australia Day" cover shoot

Rondellus - Verres Militares (War Pigs)

January 23, 2012

For all your cadre needs

The RedPad is China’s first working platform exclusively for government cadres and officials.

Redpad has various software built-in/included such as Central Leadership Developments, the “Strong Nation” People.com.cn discussion forum, Daily Policy Reference, Internet Public Opinion, and the People’s Daily newspaper. According to “RedPad’s” official website, this tablet’s retail price is 9999 yuan.

At around one and a half-thousand dollars in the old empire, ten thousand yuan is a bit steep even in comparison with an iPad (though, in fairness, the RedPad probably supports Flash and offers more freedom of choice than Apple's closed ecology).

Ghost of a Flea

Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut

If you have never experienced LSD, this is the nerd version.

In 2009, thousands of Internet users were asked to remake "Star Wars: A New Hope" into a fan film, 15 seconds at a time. Contributors were allowed to recreate scenes from Star Wars however they wanted.

Poncho - Please me

January 21, 2012

Kari Tauring - Kjerringa med Staven

"Researching vardlokkr (songs or calls to lure nature spirits), Kari Tauring came across the Norwegian Folk Song, "Kjerringa med Staven," or "Dear Lady with a Staff." This children's song describes the traditions of the volva kona, living outside of community, talking to the goddess Frigg as the hare, and working with jotun energy (giants, primal nature energy)."

Warwick Castle Trebuchet

Ásmegin - Huldradans-Hin Grønnkledde

January 20, 2012

What the Tudors Did For Us - Ep. 3, War Machyne (2002)

What the Tudors Did for Us is a 2002 BBC documentary series that examines the impact of the Tudor period on modern society.

Adam Hart-Davis travels around Britain to introduce the idea and inventions of the Tudor Age. This episode addresses weapons of war, torture devices and Hart-Davis test fires a replica of a cannon cast of iron.

That's no moon

George Lucas has decided to build another studio for all those blockbusters he won't be making.

On a campus largely hidden from view, a 263,197-square-foot building with a footprint as big as two football fields will feature just about everything 340 movie-making employees, actors and guests will need. Plans include 51,000 square feet of film stages, 27,918 square feet of screening rooms, a 4,381-square-foot cafe, a 1,151-square-foot kitchen, 19 units providing 11,228 square feet of guest quarters, a general store, a gym and a day care center.

Lucenzo feat. Big Ali - Vem dançar kuduro

January 18, 2012

Exeunt George Lucas

Lucas says he won't make any more Star Wars films. Whereas I was under the impression he hadn't made a Star Wars film since 1977.

On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie,” Lucas tells the New York Times in a new profile, referring to YouTube fans who have re-cut his films in retaliation for the small changes he has made. “I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’”

Combine that experience with the cool reception the three “Star Wars” prequel films received in the late 90s and early 2000s, and Lucas says he’s done making new films in the canon.

“Why would I make any more,” Lucas says, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?

There's a "George Lucas fired first" line in here somewhere but it's not coming to me.

Why is Wikipedia blacked-out?

"Wikipedia is protesting against SOPA and PIPA by blacking out the English Wikipedia for 24 hours, beginning at midnight January 18, Eastern Time. Readers who come to English Wikipedia during the blackout will not be able to read the encyclopedia. Instead, you will see messages intended to raise awareness about SOPA and PIPA, encouraging you to share your views with your representatives, and with each other on social media."

Seth MacFarlane - Ain't That a Kick in the Head

January 17, 2012

The Oseberg Priestess Burial

Maria Kvilhaug makes a convincing case for the identity of the occupants of the Oseberg.

Oseberg - "The Mound of the Gods", in Vestfold, Norway, close to Norway`s oldest city Tunsberg. The mound of Oseberg contained a viking ship burial of unequalled splendor for the Viking Age. It was the grave of two ladies of high standing. Long belived to have been a Queen and her sacrificed handmaiden, many modern researchers have pointed out that the ship burial bears overwhelming evidence of having been part of a religious cult, and that the two women were priestesses of more or less equal rank. Was this the grave of an incarnation of Freya and her priestess? (Anne Stine Ingstad`s thesis) Or the grave of two women connected to the cult of giantesses and the Sacred Marriage in connection to kingship consecration? (Gunnhild Røthe`s thesis based on Gro Steinsland`s work) Was it the grave of two völur (witch-priestesses or seeresses), masters of the art of seidr (a Norse form of witchcraft and shamanism)? (Brit Solli`s thesis) Or perhaps a combination of all these things and something more?"

Investigative challenge

The UK Security Service has posted an online investigative challenge as a recruitment tool. It's a fun test to take though IMHO flawed both in its conception and suggestive of a peculiar mission brief at MI5.

Fair warning: If you meet the eligibility criteria the pay for intelligence officers is still crap.

Skyrim Kinect - Fus Ro Dah

Using the hack, players can chop down their enemies with a simple swipe of their right hand. You can also use it to cast spells and your left hand is used to control the camera. Moving your character is as simple as putting your right foot forward. If you put your foot out more, your character will change from walking to running.

Selvmord - OK

January 16, 2012

Stories from the Stone Age - Ep. 1, Daily Bread (2003)

Two things; first, something the writers get consistently wrong. Early farmers were not inadvertently mimicking natural selection in their plant and animal husbandry, quite the opposite. Early farmers were quite intentionally ("advertently"?) choosing strains to encourage and strains to discard. Natural selection is design without a designer, farming is selection by design.

Second, something they got exactly right (I suspect, inadvertently). The writers describe the first intentional planting of grain seeds as a "sacrifice" of precious food. This is not only correct on its face but correct in a profound figurative sense as well. I have never come across a satisfying explanation of sacrifice (my favourite has been George Batailles' description of sacrifice as a form of communication) but here it is at last. I sacrifice food I could have eaten by burying it in the ground and if all goes well my sacrifice returns to me many times over at the harvest. It is a short leap from there to imagining other kinds of sacrifice - of meat, say - returning in the form of a successful hunt.

Finally, an observation. Those early farmers were not burying their dead under the kitchen floor. They were planting them.

If you stare into the abyss, George Lucas will stare back at you

It turns out George Lucas hasn't finished raping what's left of our childhood.

The working title is Star Wars: Underworld and the show is about the “underneath of what is going on”, “the criminals, the gangs that are running like, you know Wall Street, basically running the United States”

DJ Shadow - Fixed Income / What Does Your Soul Look Like

January 13, 2012

An ok back up ninja forearm machete blade full tang knife sword

I have been a user of Ninja Forearm Machete Blade Full Tang Knife Swords (NFMBFTKS for short, pron ‘nif-mib-fit-kis’) for most of my career, and have some that are quite nice. As a professional mercenary and vendor of ‘blood diamonds’, ‘blood coffee beans’, ‘blood Nike knock offs’, and other ‘conflict-zone’ products, I find myself in need of a good NFMBFTKS regularly.

I was a bit disappointed for several different reasons when this product arrived at my secure compound.

First, this product is sold by a company called ‘Martial Arts Land’, which is the same name I gave to my home in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I wish the company had done more research into other entities who are also using that name before naming their company. The post office had quite a time, seeing as the shipping label read ‘From: Martial Arts Land’ and ‘To: Martial Arts Land’. I hope they are not the people who have been getting my missing issues of ‘Soldier of Fortune’ magazine, as the ‘help wanted’ section is crucial to my ability to earn a living.

Second, when I saw the description of a ‘hi-tech’ strap in the product description, I was fully expecting something computerized and perhaps operated by hydraulic machinery that would maybe shoot spikes into the arm if someone besides the owner attempted to use it. Imagine my disappointment when it was shipped to Martial Arts Land (my secure compound in DRC, not the original shipping company, see how confusing this is getting?) with a simple Velcro strap. There is no failsafe in the weapon as-shipped to prevent an enemy skilled in the use of ninja weapons from taking this particular NFMBFTKS from you and using it against you.

Thirdly, I did not find the handle to be particularly ergonomic. After using this product as intended for approximately 8 hours a day, I have developed ‘repetitive ninjitsu stress disorder’ in my rotator cuff caused, I believe at least in part, to the lack of adequate wrist support. I saw an occupational health ninja who agreed with my assessment and suggested I spend hours on end standing under an icy water fall in the middle of the woods in the dead of winter doing ninja poses to help it heal.

All in all, I can see myself using this as a back up ninja forearm machete blade full tang knife sword day-to-day, or maybe on light trips to the grocery store or library, but I will not be replacing my primary ninja forearm machete blade full tang knife sword any time soon.

Pro:
Powerful Ninja Weapon
Machete Blade
Full Tang Knife Sword

Con:
Velcro strap not hi-tech
Lack of good ergonomics
Company name ‘Martial Arts Land’ is a problem, as I as my home address is also ‘Martial Arts Land’

Our ships were British oak, And hearts of oak our men

Britain’s most advanced warship HMS Daring sets sail for the Gulf (video at the link).

HMS Daring completed four years of sea trials and training late last year and is the first of six new destroyers which will replace the Type 42 vessels which started service in the 1970s.

It is armed with high-tech Sea Viper anti-air missiles and will be able to carry 60 troops. There is also a large flight deck which can accommodate helicopters the size of a Chinook as well as take on board 700 people in the case of a civilian evacuation.

In Russia, Burger is King

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Red Eyes And Tears

January 12, 2012

Jorge Luis Borges - Borges and I

"The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate; I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things.

"Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.

No Gods or Kings. Only Man.

The [Village] Voice has obtained hundreds of new renderings of Scientology's Super Power Building in Clearwater, Florida, as well as a comprehensive collection of its architectural drawings.

A few renderings of Scientology's expensive new "mecca" were published as long ago as 2007, but that release, and a few since, have included only a few images of how the building's interiors will look once it is finished.

Images at the link. Remember: The squirreling of tech basics is a suppressive act. Search your 4th dynamic, your knowingness is trying to warn you it is true.

Tangentially relatedObjectivism in BioShock. Not that I'm not blaming Ayn Rand for L. Ron Hubbard. He was if anything her antithesis.

Levine wondered what sorts of people might live in an underwater city, what would drive someone from the rest of the world.

"I started thinking about utopian civilizations," he said. "You have these traditional utopian notions. I've always been a fan of utopian and dystopian literature. The more I started thinking about making a compelling place and compelling villain, someone who had a real concrete set of beliefs made sense."

Enter Objectivism. Levine said he had been reading Ayn Rand's books over the past few years and was fascinated with her "intensity and purity of belief."

"The surety she has in her beliefs was fascinating," he said. "She almost spoke like a super villain, like Dr Doom."

Porcelain Raft - Talk To Me

January 11, 2012

Lady Gaga - Marry The Night

World of Warcraft, Pencil and Paper Version

In which Ace reveals a suspicious familiarity with the Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition controversy and the problems that arose from making the 3rd edition Open License.

What happened was that D&D 4th was such a departure from the well-liked (and yet super-clunky) 3rd edition rules that... someone did in fact go ahead and start publishing the rules under the Open License, but it wasn't some guy in his garage. It was a somewhat-established game company, using a lot of the same artists who illustrated the actual D&D products.

And further, the anger over D&D 4 was so great people flocked to support this competitor company, which was actually simply publishing D&D 3rd edition under a different (lame) name, Pathfinder. And I hear that Pathfinder is actually... outselling the actual D&D game it's knocking off. Or at least it's too close for comfort.

Hallaton helmet

British Museum conservator Marilyn Hockey, and colleagues Fleur Shearman and Duygu Camurcuoglu undertook the micro-excavation, stabilisation and reconstruction of the hundreds of fragments – a task described as being like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Thanks to this process we know the helmet was probably made between AD 25 and AD 50 and that it was crafted from sheet iron, covered with silver sheet and decorated in places with gold leaf.

Alain Vinnytsia feat. Kievelektro - Walk, Slavs!

January 10, 2012

Mia Love - Give Back

Good luck, Extreme sleeve!

"Attached to a weather balloon, an Apple iPad was lifted to over 100,000 feet and dropped back down to Earth encased in G-Form Extreme Edge case. It remained on throughout the drop and landed fully functional."

Resurrection

Phenol and related phenolic compounds show up in Scotch whiskies, giving them the unmistakable character that's referred to "peaty," because the flavor is introduced when the grain is exposed to peat smoke during the malting process. Chemical analysis revealed not only the quantity of phenolics in the Mackinlay -- surprisingly low, given that era's reputation for heavily peated malts -- but also the particular balance of compounds, which enabled the experts to pinpoint what region the peat used had likely come from. The answer? Orkney.

* Though not, it seems, at Ontario's thieving, useless state liquor monopoly.

Michael O'Leary at the Innovation Convention 2011 - Brussels

LCD Soundsystem: You Wanted A Hit

January 06, 2012

Kôsçak Yamada - Symphony in F Major "Triumph and Peace" (1912)

This rendition of Triumph and Peace was conducted by Takuo Yusaua with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

The Symphony in F major 'Triumph and Peace', which amounts to the first-ever symphony by a Japanese composer, was completed on 8th November 1912. It may be that the symphony initially had no title and was given the name after the outbreak of World War I in 1914. In any case, the work is true to its name.

Everything you need to know about the Nobel

New documents have revealed JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was criticised by the Nobel prize jury of 1961 for its "poor prose and bad story-telling."

Jury members were also not impressed by other well-known authors including EM Forster, Graham Greene, Robert Frost - deemed too old at 86 according to the documents - and Lawrence Durrell, who was said to have an unpleasant 'preoccupation with erotic complications'.

Judges eventually named Ivo Andric, a Yugoslavian writer whose writings were inspired by the folklore of his native Bosnia, as the winner.

Eisley - Mr. Moon

January 04, 2012

For Skyrim and the Nine

In early days, I would scrounge gold coins and battered armour from the shrines I would find around Skyrim. It felt wrong but needs must. Just now I came across a shrine to Talos, perched high above Arcwind Pass on a path leading nowhere looking down on nothing in particular. It was just there, where the designers had placed it, as part of the landscape, the home of the Nords. Without realizing what I was doing, I searched my inventory and dropped a potion in offering. It fell there, joining scattered coins and battered armour and I realized my chest was tightening and my eyes misting over. One hundred and sixty hours in Skyrim and at last I know what I have to do.

Aviatr

The $715 million Aviatr is designed to fly over Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

Scientists believe that Titan is uniquely suited for heavier-than-air craft - the moon's gravity is relatively low, but its atmosphere is thick, which would mean that a heavier than air craft such as Aviatr could stay airborne for longer.

Unlike a balloon - the rival method proposed for missions to Titan - Aviatr would allow scientists to precisely control its altitude, and build up a library of 3D images of the surface and Titan's weather.

Sh*t yoginis say

Laura Marling - Blackberry Stone

January 02, 2012

Bettany Hughes - The Spartans (2003)

It's a bit slow to start but picks up once Hughes gets into Spartan social organization. What is most interesting to me is not so much the enduring appeal of Spartan sado-tourism, but how life in Athens was, if anything, even more alien to our everyday assumptions than Sparta.

The Spartans was a 3-part historical documentary series first broadcast on UK terrestrial Channel 4 in 2003, presented by Bettany Hughes. A book, The Spartans: An Epic History by Paul Cartledge accompanied the series.